Linda Heuman, SEP™
In December 2012, the John Templeton Foundation awarded me a two-year fellowship through its “Breaking New Ground in Science and Religion” funding competition. Through articles in Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, conference papers, and other presentations, I created a two-way conversation: bringing Buddhist perspectives into Western academic discussions about the nature of religion and science, while bringing Western scholarship on those questions to Buddhist audiences. The fellowship explored:
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How scholarship in philosophy, anthropology, sociology, history of science, history of religion, science studies, literary studies, and linguistics intersects with Buddhist theory and practice.
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How Buddhist perspectives might challenge and expand academic conversations about the nature of religion and science that had largely been framed by theistic assumptions and Western categories.
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How such a dialogue might contribute to research in contemplative science.
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How scholarship about the nature of religion and science might offer Western convert Buddhists new resources for understanding their spiritual experience.
Articles funded by the fellowship appeared in Tricycle from 2013 to 2015 and were later collected in the e-book Shifting the Ground We Stand On: Buddhist and Western Thinkers Challenge Modernity (2018).
